


Too Good To Be True

by marianhenryk



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Eventual Smut, Fluff, Gay Sex, IT - Freeform, IT 2017 - Freeform, IT 2019, LATER, M/M, Mostly Fluff, New York City, Reddie, Strangers to Lovers, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, but like, it's going to be really cute, love fic, no pennywise, shameless fluff, the 36 questions that lead to love, trust me on that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-17 16:21:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17563898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marianhenryk/pseuds/marianhenryk
Summary: "But that day was quite different. His best friend, Mike, worked on YouTube and was one of the people responsible for a series of videos about finding love. Not just some videos, but ones where complete strangers were to follow The 36 Questions That Lead to Love from that one The New York Times article. It sounds unbelievable and stupid, but it did work quite a few times and Mike was set on getting Eddie on one of the videos, so he could possibly (hopefully) find his soulmate."orI was watching "Can 2 strangers fall in love with 36 questions?" by Jubilee and decided to torture us all with some fluffy fanfiction about it ;)You can thank me later.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the song "Can't take my eyes off you" by Kid Freud

This was an unusual thing for Eddie to voluntarily meet up with strangers. Especially when he expected for them to become someone important in their life. He was a helpless romantic, yes, but that didn’t change the fact that his social anxiety usually took most of the fun from it. He didn’t go on cute dates, flirt with random guys or even dream about love, at least not as much as he could. There was just something terrifying about dating, about actually making his dreams come true and being happy. It was just like there was some part of him holding a leash and pulling him back every time he came even a bit closer to fulfilling his fantasies about being in love. 

Of course, he’s had a lot of crushes, a massive amount one could say. There were celebrities, guys he had passed once while on his morning jog, a cute boy from his favorite coffeehouse and a few ones from work or Tinder. The latter happened more often than once could think. Tinder was a funny way to meet people, harmless one- making him invisible (besides his profile picture) and giving him time to think about an answer. He liked that, it was great to actually don’t have anyone watching him think and squirm in his seat, sweating like a madman that has never been on a date. 

But that day was quite different. His best friend, Mike, worked on YouTube and was one of the people responsible for a series of videos about finding love. Not just some videos, but ones where complete strangers were to follow The 36 Questions That Lead to Love from that one The New York Times article. It sounds unbelievable and stupid, but it did work quite a few times and Mike was set on getting Eddie on one of the videos, so he could possibly (hopefully) find his soulmate. 

So yeah, cameras, Internet, a ton of people and a complete stranger the ton of people would expect for him to fall in love with. All of the things that Eddie was terrified of, yet, there he was. Walking the New York’s streets, on his way to Mike’s flat where this video was going to take place. Usually they happened in a studio, but it was Eddie’s condition- he wanted somewhere to feel safe, and since his apartment was a big no for strangers, there was no better idea than having it done at Mike’s. After all it was his idea, the boy could suffer a little bit. 

Why did he even agree to it? Oh, yeah, because it was Mike’s only wish for his 24th birthday. A good one Hanlon, real good one. 

Eddie sighed deeply while standing in front of the door to his best friend’s apartment. He couldn’t run away, just not show up because of the nerves inside of him, but oh boy, did he want to. He looked up at the ceiling, closed his eyes and counted to three before knocking, twice, on Mike’s door. He could hear a muffled “Coming!” and loud footsteps and then there was his friends happy face staring at him. 

“Eddie, great! Goodness, I was afraid you would bail!” He laughed, all in a good-natured way, and pulled the smaller boy in for a hug. Eddie groaned but reciprocated the gesture.

“I would if it wasn’t for you fucking wish. You’re unbelievable sometimes, Hanlon,” he scoffed with a small smile tugging at his lips. Mike only laughed in response and pulled him inside.

His place was nice and comfy, with wooden floors and walls painted by their mutual friend, Beverly, which meant it was full of beautiful ornaments and patterns, making the apartment look a little bit livelier. For the shoot all the furniture from his living room had been moved to Mike’s office, leaving only various plants from all over his place and a table with two chairs. There were some candles of the shelves and cute little decorations here and there. If looked nice, with the lights dimmed a tad and the afternoon landscape of New York behind two big windows, covering almost all of the wall. 

“Sit right here, we’re still waiting for the second boy. Would you like some tea or coffee?” Mike asked, worry evident on his face. Eddie nodded absentmindedly and murmured out a response. His friend left him then, going to the kitchen to make the beverage. Eddie took a calming breath and took off his jacket, placing it neatly on the sofa. He didn’t bother with taking off his shoes, the image of bare feet of a stranger making him uncomfortable. If he didn’t take his off, then maybe the guy won’t, too?

He took a sit on one of the chairs, the one facing the windows, and tried to calm himself down. Mike came back not long after with a greenish cup of lemon balm tea. Eddie thanked him and took it into his hands, thinking that maybe the temperature would calm his nerves. 

Mike still looked hesitant, there were some thoughts in the back of his head that maybe he was wrong, maybe Eddie wasn’t ready for such big, very much social step. He wanted to call it off, tell Eddie that he didn’t have to do it, seeing him so stressed and scared making him feel like the worst friend in the world. But just when he wanted to say the words, there came the loud knocking on his doors. 

“That’s probably him,” he murmured and spared the last glance at Eddie before rushing to answer the door. 

Eddie suddenly felt even more nervous than he had earlier. He could feel some kind of panic attack coming his way, breath hitching in his throat and tears welling up in his eyes, but no. He was a great best friend, he was going to push himself through it and make Mike happy, whatever it took. 

Mike came back exactly two minutes and twenty-four seconds later, not that Eddie counted, and closed the doors to living room behind himself. Eddie furrowed his eyebrows and looked up at his friend. The raising panic stepped aside and made place for curiosity. What was going on? Was something wrong with the guy? Did he see him and decided that it wasn’t worth it? Well yeah, maybe the panic didn’t exactly disappear on a second thought.         

“What’s going on?” Eddie finally voiced his concern and stood up. 

“Oh, nothing, really, it’s a normal procedure for all of it. Listen, you need to calm yourself, it’s all going to be okay,” Mike was talking in a calm voice, almost a whisper as if he didn’t want the other boy to get scared. Well, more scared. “Okay, focus on what I’m saying right now. There are three cameras, one here-” he pointed at a camera that would catch them both in one shot “-and one on each side of you, so we can clearly see your faces-” he then pointed at the other ones “-okay?”

“Yes Mike, I’m not fucking blind, I can see them.”

“Okay, okay, sorry. The next thing is, you are going to meet for the first time on camera, no introductions earlier. We need to see your genuine reactions. And then we are going to give you guys the questions and leave the room so you can talk in peace. You’ve got all the instructions on the cards.”

Through the monologue Eddie reduced his replies to short “Sure” and “Okay” and “Yeah, got it” at the end. He still felt a lot of fear at the thought of staying in a room alone with a _complete stranger_ but Mike told him that they could see on their laptop what was going on in the room and that he would step in if Eddie waved at the camera. It was their kind of a safe word. 

“Okay, let’s get over with it.”

Eddie was sitting on his chair, listening as Mike told the other boy the same things, that he told him. It took about three minutes but felt like eternity. Finally, one of the camera men told him that they were going to start and he left the room. 

“Hi, hello my dear fella, it’s Richie Tozier, up for any of your wishes,” he heard from behind him. He looked straight at the camera and raised his eyebrow, giving himself a small The Office moment, and murmured:

“Fucking seriously?”


	2. Can't take my eyes off you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie is a little shit, Eddie has problems defining his feeling towards him and they answer first four questions

“Fucking seriously?” Eddie said in an annoyed tone, his voice getting an octave higher. He threw his head backwards and let out an annoyed groan from the depth of his throat.

“Wow, that was a little bit harsh, don’t ya think, cutie?” the other boy laughed obnoxiously and plopped down on one of the chairs. 

The boy looked like a walking-talking wet dream of Eddie’s- he was tall, like, freakishly so, a bit lanky and had a mop of dark, curly hair on top of his head. His eyes were too green to be real and smile made Eddie all hot and bothered. It would be a perfect match, even with the stupid introduction, that the smaller boy tried to shrug off as annoying- but really found endearing and funny. 

But, (of course, there always was a “but”) he wasn’t a stranger to Eddie. He knew him damn too well for his own liking. Himself and Richie met back in Eddie’s childhood town, Derry, senior year. They both looked quite different then, but Eddie would recognize those jokes and smile anywhere, anytime. During one of the parties hosted by some random dude, that Eddie got into because he was friends with Beverly, he kind of, maybe, sort of hooked up with Richie. He was just so hot, funny (and Eddie is a sucker for a hilarious guy) and nice, they danced together through the whole night and Eddie just wanted him so bad. 

His friends had no clue, he told them that he went home because of his mom, what was quite believable so they bought it without any questions. For the rest of his stay at Derry, Richie treated him like air, though. He acted like he never had intimate, hot, a bit romantic, night with Eddie Kaspbrak. So, Eddie did too, he wasn’t going to make a lovesick fool out of himself. With the distance came hatred and Richie ended up being Eddie’s greatest enemy, without any bigger reason, whatsoever. He was just hurt and kind of embarrassed, even though nobody knew about it.

“Actually, I think I was _a bit too polite_ ,” Eddie bit back, and sat up on his chair, shooting lasers out of his eyes. 

“That’s a bit too much hate for such a small body, my dear,” Richie replied, quick on his feet, with a British accent that Eddie used to love. He was smiling cockily and eyeing Eddie curiously, trying to decipher all the emotions flowing through his companion. His face has gotten red, almost making all the lovely freckles invisible, the same as the tips of his ears and the top half of his neck. His jaw was tightly shut, teeth gritting against each other, making Richie realize that the situation was much more complicated than he had anticipated. 

He didn’t know that he would meet up with his high school crush in such circumstances, there wasn’t even a tiny part of his subconsciousness that suspected it, even though he did know Eddie was in New York and friends with Mike. How? Well, Eddie wasn’t as much of a freak about privacy as you would assume, his Instagram being public and easy for Richie to stalk. Well, stalking is a big word, but let’s not lie to ourselves- he did just that, sometimes scrolling through his friends’ accounts too, only to see some more. 

Maybe the words “high school crush” weren’t a spot-on. To be perfectly honest, Richie had never stopped having a crush on Eddie, it was just a little bit dulled throughout the last few years, given he hadn’t seen the boy for quite some time. But ever since they hooked up at one of his best friend’s, Bill’s, parties, he couldn’t stop thinking about him. It was his fault that it ended, that they never spoke again- he was too big of a pussy to come up to Eddie and talk about their feelings. Well, his feelings, he didn’t know how the boy felt about him. He supposed he was a bit of an ass towards Eddie, sometimes straight up ignoring him in the halls, but it all came from the nerves and anxiety that had built up in him. 

He expected a cold shoulder, maybe a curse of two, but never in his life had he thought that their first meeting would be _so fucking awful._ Eddie seemed to be mad, and well, Richie couldn’t blame him. 

“All right, listen, I know I’ve been a bit weird about our situation back in high school, but-”

“ _A bit weird? A BIT WEIRD?_ Well, if straight up ignoring me after a night spend together is _a bit weird,_ then I’m really sorry for you,” Eddie blew up. His anger was stronger than ever, all the pent-up tension from years ago finally bubbling to the surface. Richie sighed and his face scrunched up in pain. He avoided Eddie’s eyes at all cost, his posture changed, back hunched and shoulders lowered. 

“It’s a bit complicated...” he murmured, still not looking Eddie in the eye. The smaller boy only huffed air out dramatically and leaned back on his chair, his arms crossed on his chest.   


“Listen guys, I don’t know what’s going on, but we need to get on with the questions, or my producers are going to kill me,” Mike said through the speaker on one of the walls. Both boys sighed heavily and nodded, almost in unison, before reaching for the cards displayed in front of them. Their hands met in the middle, what a cliché, and Eddie slapped Richie’s palm, taking the card himself. 

“Ow!” Richie squeaked out and tried to fight a small smile. Eddie seemed to be the exact same chaotic good as in high school. 

“Question one,” Eddie said in a flat tone “Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?” 

He put the card away, making a new pile for the questions they were done with, and slotted his arms again, looking at Richie in a challenging way. He didn’t know how to behave around him, he couldn’t make himself to be that rude all the time, even though he knew he could. Why? Because seeing Richie’s, kind of broken, expression earlier made his stomach twist in knots and arose the idea of calming the boy down. Maybe with his lips. 

“Your mom,” was what Richie answered, almost immediately. 

“Oh my _fucking_ God, Richie!” Eddie shouted, annoyance evident in his voice. Richie chuckled and rose his hands in defense, shaking his head in the process. 

“Oh, come on Spaghetti, you know my humor!” he answered and shrugged. Even though he was still really mad, and have not forgiven Richie, Eddie couldn’t help but laugh a little bit. 

“I should have expected it.”

“You sure should’ve, Spaghetti Man!” Richie answered in a happy, melodic tone and got hit with a pillow to the head. 

“Don’t call me that and answer the damn question, Tozier!” Eddie chuckled, happy with the trajectory that his pillow had taken. He hadn’t even meant for it to hit Richie’s head and ruin his, perfectly styled, hair but he wasn’t going to complain about it. Let the asshole suffer. 

“Okay, okay, stop the violence man. I dunno, I guess maybe Freddie Mercury? Yeah, that would be cool,” he said, trying to contain the mass of wild curls on top of his head. Eddie cocked his head to the side and raised one eyebrow questioningly. 

“Elaborate,” the smaller boy rested his elbows on the table and was still looking at Richie, trying to make sense of his choice. Yeah, Freddie was great and all, but why him from all the people on Earth? There was a lot of different people, alive ones, that he could’ve answered with, but no, a dead rockman was his choice.

“Oh, ya know, the fucking gayest rock star ever, a voice of an angel, the perfect guy to eat a meal with! Maybe we could go to mine after, have a little _fun_ ,” Richie wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and it earned him another groan from Eddie.

“’K, makes sense I guess,” he mumbled, without any willpower to tell the boy how wildly inappropriate it was to sexualize dead people. “I would go with Dolly Parton, I think-”

“No fucking way!” was the shout that cut Eddie’s sentence. Richie seemed to be _living_ for that answer, having jumped on his chair so that he was squatting on it. “Tell me more, my pretty Jolene, but please don’t take my man,” the boy begged, hands clasped together and a pout forming on his face. Eddie snorted and shook his head.

“I just love that bitch, what else can I say?”

“Yeah, alright, so you would like to be a famous band member?”

“Yup,” Richie popped the ‘p’ while answering and smiled widely. He was nursing a bottle of Coke and sitting comfortably on the floor, having abandoned the chair a few minutes earlier. Eddie was keeping his distance, sipping the hot green tea he had gotten from Mike and listening to all the bizarre shit Richie had to say. “You?”

“Hard pass, being famous is too much work. Plus, I’m too much of a train wreck to let people see my decisions written all over newspapers.”

“Ha!” Richie laughed loudly, sitting up a bit. “What would they contain, Eds? ‘Eddie Kaspbrak hooking up with four men, leaving the night club with glitter stains all over himself’? I can totally see that, my man,” he snorted even louder. 

“Do I _look_ like that kind of a person?” he asked, yet again fighting a smile. It was unbearable, trying to hide the fondness he still had in his heart only for Richie, faking being unimpressed and bored with Richie’s shit. “No shame, tho, it’s fine if you do that, just be save kids!” the boy turned straightly to the camera, pointing his finger at it, as if he was reprimanding someone. 

It was all so weird, the whole ordeal of being beside his high school crush, playing a game that could actually lead to Eddie falling for him. And Richie wasn’t making it easy for him, smiling all pretty and making him laugh- the nerve of some people. 

“Forget it, next one!” Eddie shouted before Richie could stir his mind a little bit more. “Ohhh, that’s a good one, I totally do that,” he giggled to himself, trying to tease the other boy a little bit, make him wonder what exactly was written on the card. He cleared his throat dramatically and read the question. “Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?” 

“No, that’s just stupid. Why would you do it?” the curly haired man quirked his eyebrow, not understanding a thing.

“ _Well,_ it helps me ‘cause I have social anxiety, and like, I get nervous talking to people, especially on the phone. God, I’m such an awkward caller, I’m telling ya.”

“Oh,” was all Richie said. It seemed a little bit out of character for him, the silence and not having any smart remark, but Eddie assumed he just didn’t want to pry into his mental health situation. And that was great, to be honest. 

See, Richie hadn’t always been an asshole towards Eddie- he actually used to be one of the most helpful kids he had known. They didn’t know each other that well, not before the party anyway, just from the hall and advanced math where they sat next to each other (a strike of luck, not choice). They sometimes made fun of their teacher together or complained about the weather- nothing deep, but nice and fun nevertheless. 

So one day, when Eddie’s mind was kind of behind a curtain of fog, they were sitting together at math, listening to what their professor was saying when suddenly he directed one of the questions at Eddie. And it wouldn’t be a problem but said curtain of fog made his thought process really slow and inefficient so the boy struggled with finding an answer. 

His legs were shaking, eyes watering and cheeks reddening while his brain worked really hard, trying to understand what was going on. It was a bad day, his mom had been yelling at him before he went to school, his alarm hadn’t gone off and to top it all- his anxiety was kind of acting up. He had told his mother that he needed to see a therapist, but she wouldn’t let him do it, saying that it would be _so embarrassing_ if the neighbors found out. 

He wanted to cry, curl himself into a ball and maybe disappear into thin air- he really, truly couldn’t find the answer to his teacher’s question. The class started to snicker, little whispers could be heard here and there, kids making fun of him. His teacher wasn’t far behind, he had a smug smile on and was saying things like “Oh, Edward, this is elementary, maybe you should consider changing the advanced math for something less... demanding”. And that? It was driving him crazy, or crazier. 

“The answer is 199384, sir,” said someone suddenly- loudly and confident. It took Eddie a minute to understand that the voice belonged to nobody else but Richie. He was standing up, his head held high and an irritated grimace twisted his face. 

He couldn’t recall what happened next, maybe his teacher yelled at them, or maybe not, but that wasn’t important. What was important, was that Richie saved him from further embarrassment and he was his ally. 

Maybe that’s why he was having such hard time being mad at Richie. He hurt him, yes, but then Richie was someone he could count on, aside from his friends. His train of thought had been interrupted by Richie coughing loudly. 

“I said-” he smiled sheepishly, not trying to make Eddie feel guilty for spacing out. “-what would, uh, constitute a perfect day for ya?” and only then had the smaller boy noticed a card in his hand. He shook his head, trying to find a right headspace for what was going on around him, and then smiled.

“Well, I would love to wake up early and watch the sunrise, maybe on the front porch of a pretty little house in the mountains. A cup of tea in hand, someone I like next to me, maybe a few dogs running around and-”

“You’ve got it all figured out, don’t ya?” Richie snickered, what earned him a kick in the shin from Eddie and made him laugh even harder. God, it was so hard not to laugh around him.

“-Fuck off, let me finish, assh-”

“Oh, don’t ya worry your pretty lil’ head Edwardo, you’ll always finish with me!” the other boy said in a low voice, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. 

“You’re so fucking disgusting, this is unbelievable, really,” was all Eddie said, before proceeding to ending his story about a lazy day with a book, hiking and watching some lame tv in the evening. 

“That’s so cute and domestic, little Eds Spaghetts is such a sap, awh!”

Eddie sighed, raised his head towards the ceiling and mouthed some curse words, wondering yet again what was going on and why was he even laughing at all of those poor excuses of jokes. 

“Well, since you’re so eager to know,” Richie started talking (again) in a sarcastic tone, making Eddie snort and raise on his chair a bit, catching eye contact with his companion. “My perfect day would be at a concert, or maybe music festival- yeah, that’d be rad as fuck. I would stand in the front row, blow the main singer a kiss and then have hot, kinky-”

“OH MY GOD!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed that! Sorry it took me so long, I'm making my driver's license and it's been such a bitch to me and my free time, aha, sorry!   
> Anyway, till the next my loves!
> 
> (find me on tumblr! it's richieshawaiianshirts)

**Author's Note:**

> So that's the introduction to the story. I think I'm gonna go with 6 chapters, each with 6 questions, or maybe 9 chapter with 4 questions- I still have to figure it out! But either way, I think it's going to be really cute and sweet and I hope you'll enjoy it!  
> As always, let me know what you think and find me on Tumblr! (it's richieshawaiianshirts)
> 
> XOXO


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